When social justice aka Tikun Olam serves as a substitute for any committment to authentic Jewish tradition, that opens the door for an unwillingness to support Israel, rabbis who accentuate the universal themes of social justice at the expense of Jewish communal and individual committments, and to allow BDS and worse to be legitimized within the Jewish world
"However, the rabbis and Jewish organizations who at best stood silent and at worst gave a platform for people calling for the destruction of Israel also bear partial responsibility for today’s explosion of vile antisemitism. The same holds true for Jewish institutions that refused to recognize anti-Zionism as antisemitism." -- I believe that's exactly the idea reflected in that famous Twit, which Elon Musk agreed with, to be called an antisemite in response.
Very sad that Jewish voices were quite loud to call for anti-whiteness and decolonization - and now they are suddenly surprised when their allies march against Jews and Israel. What fools they are.
My wife and I attend several synagogues. Nothing brings congregants greater pleasure than seeing their youngsters do social justice (no yucky Jewish stuff) or get into Ivies. Fools die.
The Reform movement is also very guilty in not instilling in our youth , pride for being a Jew. Supporting BLM and DEI J street and others hve led us to where we are. I am not certain it can be turned around. I fear that in 50 years or so, only the Orthdox communities will be surviving and under constant threat.
It can be turned around. I agree that allowing BLM, DEI, J Street, and others to voice their noxious views about Israel and Jewish right to self determination is wrong, similar to allowing bacteria into a wound and then hoping that infection will not occur. Bad ideas, like bad odors, tend to spread quickly and harmfully.
Orthodox and Chabad will survive and grow because they actually stand for something resembling Jewish values and traditions. The other branches are so eager to fill their rapidly declining membership that they will endorse most any social cause that brings them a measure of legitimacy to non Jews.
I wonder about the breadth and representativeness of these polls. Nonetheless, the direction of the trend in the last 20 years is unmistakable. The displacement of the teaching of real history (like of antisemitism, WWII, or the Holocaust) by woke rubbish in the schools surely has something to do with it.
I've seen several people who once, over the last 20 years, denounced those who pointed out what was happening in schools and elsewhere as "right-wing" or "trolls" or "Trump lovers," now appear in person or on social media deeply shaken and disoriented, asking for advice. The evidence was there the whole time. Until the last few years, not one major Jewish organization (with the exception of the AJC) really faced what was happening. And none (except for the AJC, again) took it all that seriously until very recently. I did make it clear to anyone listening a decade or more ago that no sane person should be donating or supporting such forces and also made clear my support of AJC, precisely because it was the only major voice clearly on the right side. I also made clear my support for Tablet and anyone else exposing the personalities and money behind these destructive trends.
The habits, automatically writing checks to the ADL, automatically repeating whatever the Times says, and so on, at some point in the last 20 years, became inexcusable, in active defiance of facts. Fortunately, our Conservative institutions where we live never went down the road of legitimating BDS, JVP, or JStreet, all of them essentially front groups with sinister agendas. It did penetrate to some extent into the Reform world, albeit in a limited way. It's campuses and even public schools that have been a bigger problem, in my experience.
And don't forget the role of wealthy, influential donors with pet crackpot agendas. There's been a lot of that in American politics in the last generation, and we've seen the consequences. It warps the community's collective sense of self and purpose.
For sure, plus post secondary education ay be a factor. Disaggregating these findings could provide some clues to why opinions vary so much between age groups. My own speculation is that higher education might impact younger folks, eg the more you have the more antisemitism you express. Sad but true but the post secondary DEI narrative may be very pervasive. This does not mean that antisemitism is no longer the religion of fools. The verse “professing themselves wise they proceeded to act like fools” comes to mind.
When social justice aka Tikun Olam serves as a substitute for any committment to authentic Jewish tradition, that opens the door for an unwillingness to support Israel, rabbis who accentuate the universal themes of social justice at the expense of Jewish communal and individual committments, and to allow BDS and worse to be legitimized within the Jewish world
"However, the rabbis and Jewish organizations who at best stood silent and at worst gave a platform for people calling for the destruction of Israel also bear partial responsibility for today’s explosion of vile antisemitism. The same holds true for Jewish institutions that refused to recognize anti-Zionism as antisemitism." -- I believe that's exactly the idea reflected in that famous Twit, which Elon Musk agreed with, to be called an antisemite in response.
Very sad that Jewish voices were quite loud to call for anti-whiteness and decolonization - and now they are suddenly surprised when their allies march against Jews and Israel. What fools they are.
My wife and I attend several synagogues. Nothing brings congregants greater pleasure than seeing their youngsters do social justice (no yucky Jewish stuff) or get into Ivies. Fools die.
The Reform movement is also very guilty in not instilling in our youth , pride for being a Jew. Supporting BLM and DEI J street and others hve led us to where we are. I am not certain it can be turned around. I fear that in 50 years or so, only the Orthdox communities will be surviving and under constant threat.
It can be turned around. I agree that allowing BLM, DEI, J Street, and others to voice their noxious views about Israel and Jewish right to self determination is wrong, similar to allowing bacteria into a wound and then hoping that infection will not occur. Bad ideas, like bad odors, tend to spread quickly and harmfully.
Orthodox and Chabad will survive and grow because they actually stand for something resembling Jewish values and traditions. The other branches are so eager to fill their rapidly declining membership that they will endorse most any social cause that brings them a measure of legitimacy to non Jews.
Maese-Czeropski will be an Only Fans millionaire by the end of the year. Obviously he couldn’t care any less about Palestine… he played you guys.
I wonder about the breadth and representativeness of these polls. Nonetheless, the direction of the trend in the last 20 years is unmistakable. The displacement of the teaching of real history (like of antisemitism, WWII, or the Holocaust) by woke rubbish in the schools surely has something to do with it.
I've seen several people who once, over the last 20 years, denounced those who pointed out what was happening in schools and elsewhere as "right-wing" or "trolls" or "Trump lovers," now appear in person or on social media deeply shaken and disoriented, asking for advice. The evidence was there the whole time. Until the last few years, not one major Jewish organization (with the exception of the AJC) really faced what was happening. And none (except for the AJC, again) took it all that seriously until very recently. I did make it clear to anyone listening a decade or more ago that no sane person should be donating or supporting such forces and also made clear my support of AJC, precisely because it was the only major voice clearly on the right side. I also made clear my support for Tablet and anyone else exposing the personalities and money behind these destructive trends.
The habits, automatically writing checks to the ADL, automatically repeating whatever the Times says, and so on, at some point in the last 20 years, became inexcusable, in active defiance of facts. Fortunately, our Conservative institutions where we live never went down the road of legitimating BDS, JVP, or JStreet, all of them essentially front groups with sinister agendas. It did penetrate to some extent into the Reform world, albeit in a limited way. It's campuses and even public schools that have been a bigger problem, in my experience.
And don't forget the role of wealthy, influential donors with pet crackpot agendas. There's been a lot of that in American politics in the last generation, and we've seen the consequences. It warps the community's collective sense of self and purpose.
For sure, plus post secondary education ay be a factor. Disaggregating these findings could provide some clues to why opinions vary so much between age groups. My own speculation is that higher education might impact younger folks, eg the more you have the more antisemitism you express. Sad but true but the post secondary DEI narrative may be very pervasive. This does not mean that antisemitism is no longer the religion of fools. The verse “professing themselves wise they proceeded to act like fools” comes to mind.